24/7

Have you ever spent 24 hours a day with someone, 7 days a week – only taking breaks to take a shower and use the bathroom. Welcome to my life in Panama.

Since arriving here a little over a week a go, Eric and I have spent every waking (and sleeping) moment together. This is not good. I love him…very much, but I am not used to that much together time.

Allow me to me contextualize the situation. Before leaving my job to prepare for our Panama trip, I was working 12-16 hours a day. In fact, I worked so much that I actually spent a night in my office because I thought that I could be even more productive. An average day this summer looked like this:

5:30am – Wake up while Eric is still sleeping and quietly get ready and leave the house.
6:30am – Take the train into the city.
7:30am – Arrive at work, take a few deep breathes and prepare for the horror whose name is Summer Camp. (Don’t let the jolly “Youth & Family Director” title fool you – it was brutal.)
8:00am - 3:00pm – Run back and forth from my office to the campsite (literally) and attempt to manage 40 staff and over 400 kids.
3:00pm – Remember to eat.
4:00pm – Actually eat.
5:00pm – Answer parents’ endless questions and concerns about their child’s day.
6:00pm – Sit down at my desk and do some work. (Oh, did you think that supervising the camp was my only job…hahaha…oh no). Read emails, create staff and participant schedules, meet with staff, confirm trips, look at the budget, aid with Fall planning prep, etc.
8:00pm – Call Eric (he worked from home) and tell him that I will be leaving at 9:00pm.
11:00pm – Actually leave.
12:00am – Get home, eat whatever is left on the stove or in the fridge and watch TV – oh yea, and talk to Eric.
1:00am – Go to sleep and prepare to start the machine again the next day.

That was my life. Now I think that you and I can both agree that that was not healthy – for me or for my relationship. I needed a change. But now imagine going from 2 to 24 hours a day with someone. I once oversaw hundreds a people (how’s that for a resume builder?) and now I have to negotiate how much milk I can use for my cereal so that he can have enough for his coffee. It definitely requires an adjustment.

But of course, no story can exist without the moral at the end – at least not one of mine. During these 24/7 days together, I have learned a lot:

1. As much as I am complaining about not having time alone – I apparently turn into the “frightened girl” from every bad horror movie when left alone for too long. (Quick context: The other night, Eric went to a bar to film some locals watching Carlos Ruiz in the World Series…he is Panamanian. I was fine at the apartment for a few hours, watching TV and surfing the internet (that is really all there is to do). As I said, I was fine, until I started hearing rocks against the window pain. Someone was throwing rocks at our second floor balcony window! Every time I got near the window, the rock-throwing would increase. I turned off all of the lights, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, frantically looked for the number to the Embassy and made my sister keep me on iChat so that she could be a witness to anything that happened. After about twenty minutes of freaking out and wondering when Eric would get home, my sister very wisely pointed out that maybe it WAS Eric. I went to the balcony, and sure enough, Eric was sitting on the curb. I had forgotten that I had the keys to the apartment and Eric could not get into the lobby – and of course there are no buzzers. Ahhhhh, Jackie.)
   
   
2. Eric is great. I love him! While we get on each other’s nerves, we are main source of entertainment and conversation for each other. And more than that, we are each other’s support system.
   
   
3. I am the yin to Eric’s yang. When he is down, I am up (and vise versa). Being so close all of the time, we have learned to balance each other out.
   
   
4. And finally, I learned that the one thing that is harder than being with someone else for 24 hours a day…is being by yourself. Like I said, I am used to doing-doing-doing…now I have to learn to just be. I have to learn how to fill my day with things that engage me (I should start by getting off of the internet and turning off the TV). I have to learn how to feel comfortable with my minor daily accomplishments and not compare my new life with my old life (it is hard to feel accomplished with little things like learning a new word in Spanish, compared with running 10 programs a day at the Y.) I have to learn to let go and let God…hahaha. No, really. I have to let things go and just go with the flow and have fun.

So many lessons and I have only been here for a few days. Oh Panama, I am sure you have much more in store for me.